Sunday Service | The Fifth Sunday of Lent: March 21, 2021

Isaiah 53.10-12

“Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

This prophetic song instructs us to look at God’s servant, Jesus. “Look at me rather than your shame or your failures.” The context of Israel’s suffering fits our own lives as well.

The world can seem so broken right now, but these verses tell a different story. Isaiah is describing to us the depth of God’s love.

What you think other people make of you, think of you, affects how you relate to them. I believe there is this similar shroud around Christianity that we view God and scripture from a lens that depicts God as one who is angry, or at least super moody, and is annoyed by humanity. And if it weren’t for Jesus, God would have cut ties with us long ago. 

What view of God do you have? How do you think God views you? Does he want to spend time with you?

These are important questions because they will affect how you relate to him. 

These questions are addressed in Isaiah 53.10-12, as we see Jesus the Servant’s victory and his relationship with his people.

Let's look at verse 10:

“Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.”

The word “offering” in this verse is the technical term for a “guilt offering” as defined in the book of (Leviticus 5.14-19; 6.6-7; 7.1-10). It made provision for anyone sinning against “the Lord’s holy things” (Leviticus 5.15).

For the Israelites, that had a ritual meaning. But their rituals illustrated the true nature of sin. We sin against God whenever we fail to live in a way consistent with his holiness or his set apartness, aka: His Character. And we know that includes mistreating people made in his image, since the guilt offering also covered offenses against a neighbor (Lev. 6.1-3), which includes ourselves.

So we hear these terms of sin, and Jesus was crushed and made to suffer because of our sin. Naturally, we take this from our perspective and determine that must mean Jesus had to step in for us when he was innocent. Where is the justice in that--as we talked about last week.

So if sin has to be dealt with, we think, then God is always coming behind us and picking up our trash. Who likes that role? So God must be getting tired of this…. of us.

But when we  look at verse 10 again, let’s Flip this idea around about how God thinks of us: 

This offering of sin, when seen as fulfilled in Jesus, becomes a powerful confirmation of our salvation. If God has raised Jesus from the dead, then God has accepted his death as a guilt offering. And God has raised Jesus from the dead! 

Our guilt has been covered. 

Reparation has been made. 

Compensation has been provided. 

All the demands of God’s holy law have been satisfied. The proof is the empty tomb. Where is death?

So often we look at the cross and we think about how we put Jesus there. And we associate that feeling with How God must feel about us--we are shamed by the cross--and it has been used to do this by others. Flip that old dead rhetoric around!

Whenever you feel the weight of your sin, whenever you feel the nagging pain of guilt, If you feel shame bubbling up, whenever you doubt God’s love for you—you can look at the cross for there is God’s love on display. You can also look at the empty tomb. That’s the sign that God has accepted Christ’s offering and therefore God has accepted you.

That’s why Paul says he was determined to preach nothing “except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2.2). That’s why the cross must be at the centre of our story and the story we share. The Cross flips the story of God being a god that boiled with anger and needed Jesus to come and rescue us from his wrath.

This prophetic song shouts of the depths of God’s love for us in that he carried the weight of the sin we experience and know so well, so that: we can come out the other side into life rather than death. As verse 10 says: “he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.” The will of the Lord is that He is united with us so that we can experience the full depths of his love now….. and forevermore.

This is the Old Testament talking about New Testament love.

How do you think God thinks of you? Look at the cross! Look at the empty tomb! He conquered death to be with you--his beloved!

The tomb is empty not to Lord it over us how much we owe God; the Tomb is empty so that we know nothing can hold back his desire and love for us.

This is our story!

Let’s keep going.

Verse 11:

“After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.”

Your salvation is his satisfaction. When he looks at you, he is pleased with what he sees. He looks at you and says, all of this is worth it. You belong. You are loved. You are pleasing to God!

It’s not clear whether “by his knowledge” in this verse  means “through his know-how” or “by knowing him.” It could mean that Jesus the Servant knew what was required and acted on that knowledge to save his people (using the wisdom described in 52.13). Or it could mean that the servant reveals the way back to God. But the focus in this section is not on the servant as prophet but on the servant as savior. So it’s more likely to mean that by knowing the servant—by us putting our faith in him—he justifies many.

The resurrection turned the world’s verdict upside down: the condemnation of Jesus by the world became vindication by God. But those who are in Christ get turned upside down in the process. The condemned become the justified. Sinners are declared righteous. And Jesus is satisfied.

Sin and death has no sting. Sin and death does not hold onto you.

Why?

Because Jesus is holding onto us!

Verse 12:

“Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

Great = many, not powerful. Do we feel fragile? Does our faith seem fragile?

I'm going to be honest, I feel fragile right now with the state of things. But these verses draw attention that Jesus shares his victory with us.

“The concluding promise of the Song is not that the Servant will be promoted to the ranks of the great captains and mighty warriors. The promise is that he will share the riches he has obtained by his victory with a multitude of needy [people], for whom he freely consented to die.”

The needy become the strong. And Jesus sees us as strong and not weak or worthless. Again, look at the cross and see the victory of Jesus and also see yourself made strong through him!

Jesus himself echoes the “many” of Isaiah 53 when he says in Matthew 20.28, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

We are the “many.” This is us. This is you if you’ve put your faith in Christ.

His love for us is profound.

His love for us is good.

Again, Isaiah reminds us that Jesus died willingly. His life was not taken from him against his will. He poured it out.  And again, Isaiah reminds us that he died in our place. This does not mean we deserve to die, or that God wants to kill us because we have no good in us.

What it means is that the wages of sin is death--life separated from God is death. Jesus entered into our separation and took the wages we are due upon himself.

On the night before he died, Jesus quoted verse 12: 

“It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’, and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment” (Luke 22.37). That would be graphically fulfilled the next day as he hung between two criminals: three criminals crucified in a line.

But that picture points to a deeper meaning and a deeper fulfillment: Jesus aligns himself with transgressors. He stands with us—with you, with me—that we might stand with him. 

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5.21). Jesus not only aligns himself with transgressors; he also intercedes for them. 

In Luke’s account of the crucifixion we read, “When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing’” (Luke 23.33-34).

Jesus willingly went to the cross so that we could walk out of the tomb. And that reality is often too much for us to grasp or handle. And he meets us there too.

He knows the weight of sin. He knows our guilt. He knows our shame. He meets us there and leads us, as a good shepherd, to green pasture and quiet waters, so that we can truly receive and be reborn into the living as the worthy & beloved child, whom we were created to be.

This song of the suffering servant in Isaiah is an invitation:
to know God,
to trust God,
to have faith in God,
to believe in God--all through Jesus.

The script has already been flipped. 

As I listened to the bible project this week intro the book of Deuteronomy--the message of that book reveals the counter-cultural justice of God, they said to look at the book through the lens of not how the law of Moses compares to today- but look at how it compared to the justice served by the countries and cultures of its contemporaries. Once we do that, then we can see how radical this God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob really is. I encourage us to do the same as we look at this prophetic song of Isaiah. 

Let's take these words in context to what Israel was going through- everything being stripped away and becoming exiled from their homeland. And in the middle of this tragedy, Isaiah is sent to share this message of redemptive love from the Father’s heart.

We are not condemned but set free by God the father.

The script has been flipped: 

God is not angry with you.

God is not over you.

God is not weary of you.

Jesus reveals this through his actions on the cross and his empty tomb.

God’s love for us has no depth.

So let's talk about sin and its wages. Let's talk about the messy and ugly. Let's talk about our enslavement to things. Let's talk about the corruption of power, wealth and control. Let's talk about all of these things while looking at the servant- who reveals that we are loved through and through 

What is our desire?  

What is our desire, church!?

Worship: we worship Jesus because of who he is and the extravagant love he has for us.

I want to close today by reading a part of this song with the pronouns changed.

Close your eyes, breathe in: I return to Jesus.

Breathe out: I return to your rest.

Surely Jesus took up my pain

and bore my suffering,

yet I considered Jesus punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 

But Jesus was pierced for my transgressions,

Jesus was crushed for my iniquities;

the punishment that brought me peace was on Jesus,

and by the wounds of Jesus I am healed.

I, like a sheep, have gone astray,

I have turned to my own way;

and the Lord has laid on Jesus my iniquity. 

Because Jesus has suffered,

he will see the light of life and be satisfied;

when people know Jesus, God’s righteous servant, Jesus will justify many,

and Jesus will bear our iniquities.

Therefore the Lord will allocate many people 

as a reward to Jesus,

and Jesus will allocate the strong as plunder to his people,

because Jesus poured out his life unto death,

and was numbered with the transgressors.

For Jesus bore the sin of many including me,

and made intercession for the transgressors like me.